trash bins
by Anrheithwyr
Summary: Susan knows she isn't supposed to go running back to Anthony Goldstein. Hannah knows she should be happy for Neville. So why does it feel like they're both throwing their lives away?


"I have pepper spray," Susan called into the dark, pulling the little bottle from her purse to wave it wildly in the direction of the noise that had been following her for several minutes now. "I'm not afraid to use it, if I must."

"You'd spray your own friend? I wouldn't do that if I were you." replied a voice from the shadows, and Susan gasped.

"Hannah! You should have told me it was you following me! You scared me for nothing at all! And I _was_ going to defend myself however I could-you remember Professor Moody's lessons from fourth year, don't you?"

"Constant vigilance?" Hannah said with a laugh that Susan thought sounded just the slightest bit forced, stepping under the streetlight so that her long, blonde hair shone around Hannah's pale face. "How could I forget it, when we spent a whole year listening to that madman?"

"What're you doing out here so late, Hannah? And why were you following me?" Susan's voice took on a suddenly stern tone as her taller friend linked arms with Susan, escorting Susan further down the street.

"I suppose I could ask the same of you, couldn't I?"

"Yes, but I wasn't the one being horribly mysterious and following me around like some sort of _creeper_. You know better than that, Hannah."

"I do," Hannah replied quietly, but she said nothing more for several more minutes, the two young women making their way across the abandoned streets.

Susan took in the sight of the woman who had been her best friend in school; Hannah was even taller than she had been a few years back, with light blonde hair that lay half-way down Hannah's back, and a serious look on her face, lips pursed.

In comparison, Susan was short, a bit on the heavier side, with recently cut red hair and dull blue eyes that took in her surroundings but did very little to reveal the inner nature of Susan Bones.

"Neville says that he saw you at St Mungo's earlier today," Hannah said in a light-hearted manner, clearly attempting to be conversational. Susan didn't think it was working very well.

"Did he?"

"He goes nearly everyday now, you know, to be with his mum and dad as often as he can. Now that it isn't very likely that he'll be around much to spend time with his parents."

"Why is that?"

"They've asked him to be the Defence professor, at Hogwarts I mean, what with his experience as an Auror. McGonagall sent us a letter a few months ago, and it's been a big debate between Nev, McGonagall, and Auror Shulke ever since."

"Oh," Susan muttered, unsure of what to think about the man who had once been a shy, bumbling boy at Hogwarts only a few years ago. The idea of _Neville Longbottom_ of all people teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts was interesting, to say the least. "Congratulations to Neville, then."

"Yes, congratulations to Neville, though I suspect he'll turn them down. After all, they have that Welsh bloke, don't they, Taggert or Toggert or whatever his name is, teaching Defence now, don't they? Besides that, I don't think Nev's much interested in Defence. He's been talking about taking over from Sprout, now that she's talking of leaving at the end of term."

"Is she? I hadn't heard anything of the sort."

"Oh, yes. She's getting on in age, apparently, and wants to spend her later years with her children and grandchildren. Sprout's talked Neville up quite a bit anyway, to take over from her. I suspect McGonagall will give in soon enough." Hannah did not seem entirely approving of this possible job change for her husband.

But, then again, Hogwarts _was_ quite far away from wizarding London, and Susan had heard plenty from her friend about the couple's lamenting struggles to have a child since their marriage five years ago. Being separated would not make Hannah's dreams of a child come to fruition any faster.

"So." Hannah said in a curt voice, looking at Susan once more, pale eyes alight with interest. "Why were you at St Mungo's earlier today, then?"

"Ah." Susan could not think of a good reason. Why _had _she been at St Mungo's? Susan herself wasn't entirely clear why she had bothered to go, or at least found herself incapable of finding a response that she knew would not upset Hannah.

Certainly it had not been because she pitied…

"Because Goldstein's been admitted, I heard. Recently, I mean, because Lisa cursed him for showing up at her house again. _I _hear he's got ears like an elephant now." Hannah's words were empty of all emotion, her face blank, as though she were merely commenting on the cold night.

This was very much true, as Susan could personally attest. Anthony Goldstein, who had never learned to stop, never learned to listen when a girl told him no; he was lying in a bed at St Mungo's with abnormally large ears because of his refusal to leave Lisa Macmillan, a married mother of two, alone despite her warnings.

And Susan had gone to visit him at St Mungo's, despite knowing that nothing good could ever come of visiting her ex-boyfriend.

"I thought we decided no more Goldstein, Su. After what he did to you? After what he did to Ame? Yet, Goldstein's in St Mungo's, and Nev says you've gone to visit. He looked at the register, you know, and it's there, clear as day. Susan Bones, visiting A. Goldstein in Spell Damage. I thought you had moved on from him, Su."

"I-I have," Susan spluttered, but even she did not believe her own weak protests. "I _have _moved on. I'm…I'm seeing someone else now, a muggle man. I'm not interested in Anthony anymore."

"Yet you're still visiting the man who ruined your life?"

"I…I..." She could not find the words to explain why she had gone to visit Anthony, nor what had drawn her to St Mungo's. Perhaps a sense of mercy, or to show him what he had lost; but she had gotten neither of those things at St Mungo's, so why _had _she gone?

"How old is your daughter now? Little Hannah, how old is she? Nine? Ten? Almost Hogwarts age, I'd guess, from the last picture I saw of her."

"She's turning ten this December," Susan muttered, and the older Hannah nodded. "She doesn't…she doesn't know about him. About me going to visit him. I don't know if she even really remembers much about Anthony…he was barely ever in her life. But she remembers Amelia very well, and she remembers Anthony not coming by at all afterwards."

"And yet, despite all of what you have now, with your daughter, you're still running back to Anthony at the first chance you have, is that it?" Hannah demanded.

Susan turned her face away from Hannah, stepping away from the taller girl, her cheeks burning. She did not want to admit that, despite everything that Anthony had done to her, she still loved him, deep down.

She still loved the idea of being with him.

"Listen, Hannah, I have to go, my daughter's probably waiting for me, I've got Loren, the muggle boyfriend, looking after her."

"Bye, Su. I hope your night was well." Hannah seemed to mean this, and Susan flashed her friend a grin before Apparating out of sight, leaving Hannah to sink back in the shadows once more.

…

"I saw Susan last night," Hannah said quietly to her husband as he came out of the ward where his parents had lived for the past twenty-four and a half years. "She nearly pepper sprayed me because she thought I was stalking her."

"And were you?"

"Only just a little bit," Hannah replied with a smile that was not really a smile, taking Neville's large hand in her own. He had been spending much of his time at St Mungo's recently, to make up for time that would not be available to him later.

"How did she seem? I haven't spoken to her in awhile. How's her daughter, Hannah?"

"Well enough. Su admitted to going to see Anthony, though she couldn't seem to give me a reason why she had. Just kept protesting that she wasn't _seeing _him, you know?"

"I don't think she's mad enough to go back to him, Han, not after what Anthony did to Ame. Susan's forgiving, but even she has limitations."

"What, like how we thought she surely wouldn't go back to him after he left her in fifth year because he refused to admit he'd gotten her pregnant? You know it's been ten years, and he still refuses to admit that Hannah is his. She barely got him to call Ame his own, and now…"

"She's trying her best, Hannah, you know that," Neville said, giving his wife's hand a squeeze and a comforting smile as they walked past a familiar Healer.

"I know, I know. I just feel like sometimes she's much too willing to throw her life away for a man who did his best to throw it away for her a hundred times already."

"She has her daughter to look after her. She has us to look after her. We won't let Anthony destroy Susan's life ever again, I promise, Hannah. We'll keep her safe. After all, isn't that what friends do? Look out for each other?"

"Yes, I suppose that it is." Hannah didn't sound sure of her response, though.

"Now, c'mon, we're going out to celebrate tonight. Because _you_, my lovely, lovely wife, are looking at the newest Herbology professor at Hogwarts, starting on September first."

"Oh, really, Nev? That's so exciting! Congratulations! I'm so proud of you, dear." Neville did not hear the bitter emptiness that floated under the surface of his wife's words. And he did not see the tightness of her smile, or the way her eyes did not light up when she spoke.

…

Susan settled heavily on the comforter of her bed, ignoring the flickering from her lamp that she had been meaning to fix days ago.

Hannah, the younger one who was Susan's daughter, had indeed been waiting up for her mother, eager to hear about where Susan had been all day.

Susan had made up some story about visiting with old friends-which was not, she told herself when the guilt surfaced, entirely untrue-and tucked Hannah into bed before sending Loren off for the night with a "thanks" and a kiss on the cheek.

She did not feel like admitting to her boyfriend how close Susan had been only hours before to running straight back into the arms of the man who had ruined her life twice before.

Why was it that, more than anyone else, Anthony always seemed to come back when she least wanted him to? Writing her that letter while lying in his bed at St Mungo's, he had made it feel like they were fourteen again and she had only left him for the night.

But actually _being _there, with Anthony, all that she could see was the mean words and the cruel laughs that he had forced her to endure for the entirety of their relationship.

All that she could see was Ame, her sweet little girl, and the crushing hopelessness that had come with losing her daughter.

And how could it be that, despite shoving Anthony out of her life almost three years ago-despite moving on to a new flat, a new boyfriend, and a whole new life-she found it all too easy to come running back to him because of a stupid love letter?

She had given years and years and years to Anthony, who had always proven eager to throw Susan's life into a garbage bin the first chance he got. But Susan always came back, even though she knew it was wrong.

Susan kept running back to Anthony, even as he was slowly killing her.


End file.
